Smoke and Mirrors
by Celli
Summary: Lex doesn't smoke. Lionel doesn't see. Neither of them understands.


Smoke and Mirrors  
by Celli Lane  
  
Feedback: celli@fanfic101.com   
Category: UPT (Unresolved Parental Tension).  
Rating: PG-ish.  
Spoiler: through "Duplicity."  
Summary: Lex doesn't smoke. Lionel doesn't see. Neither of them understands.  
Archiving: Ask and I'll probably say yes.   
Disclaimer: Smallville and its residents belong to Millar Gough Ink, Warner Brothers, DC Comics, and other assorted people with lawyers. Bummer.  
  
Author's Note: Mega thanks to Jayne for the double beta and for working the phrase "no touching guns" into everyday conversation.  
  
***  
  
He misses smoking.  
  
Odd, he should miss the stab of cocaine, the slide of   
heroin into his arm, the sting of tequila, but no. Out of   
all the vices he gave up before Smallville, this one haunts   
him.  
  
The quick sulfur of a match when it's lit. One of his   
favorite scents, ever. The sound the flame makes when it   
touches the paper of the cigarette. The glow of the   
tobacco lighting.  
  
Everyone has their own ritual for getting the stuff into   
their lungs, where it can sit and do the most damage.   
Lex's is ingrained, learned from watching his father and   
cronies with their cigars when he was too young to imitate,   
but remembered until he faked his way through his first   
cigarette at eleven.  
  
Smoke in through the mouth, pursed around the cigarette   
like a virgin's kiss. Hold it for a heartbeat; draw air in   
through the nose, pushing the smoke down. Another   
heartbeat. Feel the burn in nose, throat, stomach. Exhale   
quickly through the nose, then puff the rest out through   
the mouth. Watch the smoke drift up. (He only made smoke   
circles when he was drunk. But he was good at it.)  
  
Sometimes, in the gray cold of a Kansas winter, he finds   
himself watching the steam rise from his nose and mouth,   
shaping it to imitate smoke. The tingling in his nostrils   
is surprisingly similar, and it amuses him to pretend,   
although he's careful not to do it when anyone might   
notice. He doesn't get much of a chance; he lives a   
climate-controlled life. Not much cold. Not much steam.  
  
No smoke, at all.  
  
Still, there are nights when the plant is making his head   
spin and Clark has lied to him again and his father is   
bellowing from another room, and Lex wonders if it would be   
so bad to have a smoke. Just one. Or twenty. Really,   
isn't it the least destructive thing he could do to himself   
at this point?  
  
But he knows that if he walks within range of his father   
after smoking, Lionel will raise his head, sniff the air,   
and send Lex that look that says "addict." Because cigars,   
well, they're business tools, and expensive, and if Lex   
were to take those up he'd be a boy trying a man's hobby.   
But Marlboros? Common nicotine? Hmph.  
  
That look.  
  
(They play a similar game with the brandy. If there's none   
missing when Lionel hefts the decanter to pour himself a   
glass, Lex might as well be a fourteen-year-old drinking   
soda with his little friend Clark. But if too much is   
gone, he's a lush, headed back down that road to debauchery   
and ruin and lower stock prices.)  
  
So on those nights, Lex leans out his window until the   
central heating can't follow and just breathes until the   
air around him is nothing but mist and he starts to see the   
answers to his problems in the shapes he exhales. Then he   
laughs at himself, checks his head for frostbite, and ducks   
back in again.  
  
He has better things to do than this.  
  
But God, he misses it.  
  
  
***  
  
Lionel is beginning to forget what things look like.  
  
Or rather, the memories that used to be taken up with   
visual shape have been co-opted by the tangible. He knows   
what round is, but round is how it feels under his hands,   
not how it looked to his eyes.  
  
He clings to the few things he refuses to lose. Lilly's   
smile the last time she kissed him. The cover of Forbes   
magazine the first time he was on it. The photograph of   
Lucas. Lex...he can't forget what Lex looks like.   
Sulking, arguing, high, under a cornfield, in the midst of   
a tornado...the boy is as stubborn in sense memory as he is   
in every other aspect.  
  
When he relaxes, though, some things come back to him.  
  
Years ago, he used to go driving through the streets on the   
nights Lex didn't come home. He's still not sure why. He   
never found Lex, apart from an occasional glimpse of a car   
that might have been his in one of a hundred parking lots.   
Never expected to. One lone child in Metropolis? And yet   
he drove, and looked, and plotted the fire-breathing   
lectures that never made an impression on the boy.  
  
Those nights he remembers. The glare he screwed his eyes   
against. Street lights, neon signs, those blaring white   
marquees on movie theaters. Headlights in the other lanes;   
they always seemed to be set on bright even when they   
weren't. It hurt to see, then. He's been accustomed to a   
driver for a long time, but on those nights he drove   
himself, and for a long time the driver's seat of a car   
meant worry and wondering and those neverending damn   
lights.  
  
And when he hit the 2 AM traffic jams--bars closing, move   
to the places that don't follow local law, and don't forget   
to drive like the maniac you are while you go--the lights   
behind and beside would converge on a sliver of his window.   
He would stare into the half-reflection it provided,   
willing himself to find the answer, find the key, discover   
the strategy or invent a new one to make Lex understand.   
To convince him that his destiny, his potential were worth   
more than this nonsense.  
  
He never found it. After a while he stopped looking at   
himself. Then he stopped lecturing. Eventually, he   
stopped driving. He had better things to do than look for   
a son who didn't want to be found.  
  
The irony is, of course, that if he'd found the boy,   
confronted him in front of God and Metropolis, Lex would   
have laughed at him for being weak enough to search him   
out, stupid enough to think he had any control over his   
life. But when he stepped back, allowed Lex his freedom,   
he was the uncaring father, the bastard who only cared for   
the Luthor reputation.  
  
He realizes, as he sits in the mansion with his brandy in   
hand, that Lex doesn't go out at night in Smallville.   
Lionel's room is close enough to the drive that he could   
hear a car as it came or went, but what he hears instead is   
Lex moving around the castle, talking on one phone or   
another, laughing with the Kent boy, pouring himself a   
drink. (Not too many, he's taught him, there's a   
difference between appreciating fine liquor and being a   
slave to intoxication). Living.  
  
And Lionel sits and listens to his son's life and wonders   
if he could see the glass in his hands (round) and the   
light from the hall (bright?) and the brandy he tosses back   
(warm), would it reflect him?  
  
He'd like to ask Lex to look and...just tell him. He   
won't, of course. He doesn't need a reminder of the not-  
blank-enough look Lex gets when he's holding back scorn.  
  
So, see, he is forgetting Lex after all, because on nights   
like these he can't remember any other expression. 


End file.
